‘French fries across Canada will look and taste completely different in 2019’

We all know climate change is a problem — and if you’re still denying it, it’s time to get your head out of the sand. In most Canadian communities, we are exempt from feeling the real effects on a day-to-day basis.

All that is about to change, however, thanks to the the terrible potato growing season parts of North America has just experienced.

Due to a terrible growing season that destroyed nearly 4.5% of Canada’s potato crop, the potatoes that survived have grown short, stumpy, and brown. They’ll likely cook differently, too.

This year has been somewhat intense, weather wise. Canada saw a late spring, hot summer, and a cold fall. The United Potato Growers of Canada described this as a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances that will have a huge effect on the crop.

The impact of just one of these seasonal fluxes is easy to survive, but to be hit by all three means potentially up to 500 million pounds of Canadian potatoes will be wasted this year.

Not only are the potatoes misshapen and small, they’ve undergone “low-temperature sweetening” because many froze or were impacted by very cold temperatures.

While this doesn’t affect the nutrients within, it can impact the taste. They will likely be sweeter, because when a potato meets cold temperatures it turns its starch into sugar.

When fried, the potatoes will also likely turn brown faster, according to the Financial Post.

McDonald’s sources 314 million pounds of Canadian potatoes a year, so we’re definitely going to see a difference in our McD’s fries — they’ll be short, and likely darker, too.

We all know McDonald’s is standardized across the world, and their perfectly yellow fries are famous for always being exactly that.

However, hopefully this doesn’t mean that Canadian farmers are further impacted by not being able to sell their potatoes to one of their biggest purchasers, McDonald’s.